Introduction to Japanese Language and Culture Mrs.

Vatsala Misra Foreign

Language Program Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur

Lecture - 1
Introduction to Japanese Scripts

Hello everybody and welcome to this course on Introduction to Japanese language and
Culture. Well before, I formally start telling you about the language. I would like to
introduce myself, first and foremost. I am Vatsala Misra, I am teaching Japanese here in
IIT Kanpur, in the foreign language program and will be with you all through the forty
lectures and we will learn Japanese together. We will learn all the expressions, all the
proverbs; different forms of verbs and a lot of other things in this course and towards the
end of the course. I am sure you will be very confident, about talking in Japanese. Well
these lectures are basically based on my experience, which student over these years; what
they want of the course, what questions they ask, what is important for them and on all
these things I have made this course.

I have tried to simplify it, as much as I can. Try to give you as much information, in a
very simple way and try to provide, try to give you an insight into the Japanese life. How
the Japanese people think, how they interact, what are the kind of expressions they use,
what is their mannerism, how they speak, what is the body language. All those things I
have tried to do in various ways; through pictures, through audios and through a lot of
other things which you will see when, we actually start with on our lessons. Well before,
I actually begin now, I would like to tell you what I plan to do in the course, but even
before that people tell me and a lot of students always ask me; the Japanese is a very
difficult language and very difficult to learn. There are a lot of scripts and it is difficult to
memorize all of them and write in the language. So well I would like to ask you before I
tell you how difficult or how easy the language is. What is language?
(Refer Slide Time: 03:50)

What is the purpose of language? What do you think about it?. Well as you can see over
here it is given; language is a simple medium of communication. In olden times when the
scripts were not there, when man was not aware of scripts, of writing. At that time
communication was done as it is a medium of communication. Communication was done
through pictures, through paintings, through body language, by means of gestures and it
was considered all right. As you could communicate a lot of things, you could say a lot
of things in by doing all those things. But what is the purpose of language? You can see.
The main purpose of language is, to talk to people, to connect to people, to be able to
convey, in a better way; to be able to talk and to be able to say a lot of things and be
understood; that is what the purpose of language is, that is what language is for. So what
is required, what is important, to cultivate required, to cultivate a basic language ability.
What are the important things that are required for you, for someone, to be able to speak
or communicate.?

So, well to communicate there are two important things; one is the spoken part and one
is the writing part. So for the spoken part, there are different things that are required for
the writing part, there are certain different things that are essential. Now what is an
essential for speaking, or the spoken part of the language. The most important thing, for
the spoken part is for you to be able to say some sounds, to be able to pronounce
something to be able to utter something, to make a sound, to be able to form words. So
for that what do we need; for spoken language we need phonetics. Now by doing that, by
using that we can make words. With those words we can make sentences and by learning
some simple sentences, we can make complicated sentences and are able to convey,
nicely what we want to say to the other person.

For writing what do you need, for reading what do you need. Well the most important
thing for reading or for writing is a script. A script is very essential, and that is the only
way you will be able to write something or read something. Now for a lot of languages,
you have a simple script. You have alphabets as in English or in Hindi, you have your
alphabets and you can join the alphabets and make words and with words you can make
sentences and convey and do conversation. In Japanese, we have that script yes but we
also use pictograms and ideograms, because of this reason that we use phonetic script
and these pictograms. Lot of time it is felt, that the language is difficult, because it is a
little difficult to read. Well in India, we are exposed to a lot of languages. We know, that
there are different scripts, there are different languages. We hear them most of the time.
We hear them a lot of times for example, if you hear a person talking in Urdu, and you
listen to a person talking in Hindi.

Well it is understood you can understand Urdu to a great extent and the person who
knows Urdu can understand Hindi easily. But if you see it written, well Urdu script is
very different from the Devanagari script. So what do you think? Does this mean that the
person does not know Hindi or vice versa. No, it does not mean that and that happens
with the lot of other Indian languages as well. There are lot of south Indian languages
where you can understand when it is spoken, but may not be able to read and same
applies to a lot of European languages. They use the English alphabet. You may be able
to read what is written, but then you cannot understand or even decipher what it means.
So well all these things are there and Japanese also, depending on what your motivation
is what you want to do with the language, whether you just want to do the spoken part or
you want to do the written part. You will see the difficulty.

So, as such any languages is difficult and any language can be easy. It depends on the
person who is learning the language. So well if we think of the writing part, the spoken
part can be taken care of; by learning words, by doing conversation, by learning a few
expressions and other things, doing grammar but if we think of the writing part. Well,
writing part may seem a little difficult, but that can be learnt, can be done by a person
and you can start writing and reading very easily in Japanese. The reason foreigners are
unable to do or the reason they find it a little difficult is because you are not learning the
language in the environment, we are learning Japanese. in a very non-Japanese
environment, where you are not exposed to Japanese twenty- four seven. If you are doing
the same thing in Japan or may be whichever language you are learning, you are doing it
in that environment then it is much faster.

Though now there is the internet and we have more exposure and we can connect
better, but still if you are talking to Japanese people. If you are in that environment
dealing with the natives, looking at people interacting, looking at people using
expressions, idioms, phrases and the situations that you will encounter. It is much easier
to learn, but well you do not have to get worried about it. We have tried to make it very
simple and shown and I have tried to show all of you through pictures, through
audiosand I am sure it would not be as difficult as it seems and after having done these
forty lectures. I am sure that you will bevery very comfortable with the language with
expressions and grammar in this course. Of course, we will concentrate on the spoken
part of the language and with that will also lay a foundation for the written part; the
writing and the reading of the language, but the main thrust is; obviously on the
conversation.

Now having said that this does not mean that, we will just do some kind of situational
conversation you will mug it up, you will learn it by heart, and you will reproduce it in a
situation and that is conversation. No, that is not conversation at all and that is not what
we are going to do over here. We are definitely going to do conversation, situational
conversation, but with that, I also plan to teach you language as such. Your interest
should be not only on the conversations, but also on learning the language, on
understanding how the people are, how they think, how they behave and how they
interact with each other. This course is about teaching you, how to speak the language,
how to enjoy the language, how to learn about the Japanese people and their Culture.
(Refer Slide Time: 14:27)
 Well the people that I think would want to want to do the course will be students
planning to pursue studies abroad in Japan, would want to visit Japan for short periods;
not as tourists. This is not a course fortourists. . This is about learning the language. So
people who want to stay in Japan, for short periods and as it is very difficult to move
about in Japan without knowing the language it would be very helpful for them. If they
learn and then go to the country, it is always better. You interact better with people you
are comfortable and things are very easy. And of course, for students who are applying,
for jobs in Japanese companies and most of all. The most important thing people who
have and academic interest and would like to know more about the language. So, this
course is all about this and that is how we are going to move ahead. As this is the course,
meant for people who want to learn the language.

Well this is going to be, a very basic Japanese course, where anybody can learn.
Whatever the age you could, be a child or an adult. Anybody could learn from the
course, anybody could go over all the lectures and learn the language. And also, I would
like to tell you that we will start from the very basics of the language; that is from the
alphabets itself. The equivalent of a b c d is what we are going to do in the beginning.
Then gradually graduate from class one to class two to class three and go ahead till class
twelve. So, we will do a lot of things here slowly and you will feel comfortable. I am
quite sure. Also the alphabets, which is very basic. We will of course, concentrate on
vocabulary, on grammar, on punctuation, on
intonation, on different verb forms. And with all these, as I have been telling you all
along we will also do proverbs and see how the people are and what the culture in Japan,
is. So, all those things together, we will try to do this course, with the help of pictures,
with the help of audios, try to help you as much as I can, and give you an insight into the
Japanese life style, and the people and their culture.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:44)

So, well now enough of all this and I think we should start with our class and the first
thing that we have to do over here is the scripts.
(Refer Slide Time: 17:49)

So, well there are three scripts in the language we have. As you can see over here we
have Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:01)

 So these are the three scripts; the Hiragana and the Katakana are called the ‘Kana’
scripts in Japanese and Kanji is the Ideograms and the Pictograms. We will discuss kanji
of course, in detail later as well, but first we should talk about hiragana and katakana.
Now it is interesting that till the fourth century A. D. the Japanese did not have a script.
They had a language, they could talk freely but there was no script. So now if you do not
have a script well you cannot document anything, you cannot write anything. So as
travelling increased and as people started coming to Japan, trade was happening. So
through trade and through people coming into Japan from China and Korea lot of
pictograms from China entered Japan. They realized that this was some kind of a script.
which they could use for documenting and slowly over period of time, with the help of
these pictograms, which entered Japan at that time via trade hiragana came into being
they developed this new script which was called hiragana.

Hiragana is a script, which is used for Japanese words; words of Japanese origin, belonging to
Japan and then via trade with people coming in with Japanese people going out probably to
Korea or to China. Foreign words also entered into Japan, foreign words slowly came and
wereused in the language. So now there was a problem as to how to write those foreign
words. From these pictograms and ideograms, which
were already there katakana was made. Katakana was developed for foreign words. So
the difference between hiragana and katakana basic difference, is that hiragana is for
words of Japanese origin and katakana is for words of Chinese or foreign that time
Chinese and now of course, foreign origin. Also because kanji came first, the pictograms
came first to Japan. The ladies were not allowed or could not get access to these kanji
characters and they were not allowed to write. Slowly over period of time, when
hiragana was developed ladies got the script of hiragana and they started writing in
hiragana. And thus you will notice that this script, when I show you the script you will
see, that it is very cursive. It is round, it is circular, where as katakana is very angular we
will discuss of course, these Chinese characters later also.

For the time being these are just pictograms and ideograms, meaning pictures and ideas
shown or depicted in line form. We have a few for example; ‘a sun’, when someone says
make sun. What do you do, this is exactly what you draw and automatically anybody
would say that this is sun. Now what is the sun do? The sun divides day and night into a
day into two parts which is day and night. So well if you want to show this in lines, this
is how it is going to come. It is going to divide like this, so it is to be square and it will be
divided in this form, in this manner like this. So when you look at it, when a Chinese or
Japanese would look at this character, immediately the picture that comes to their mind is
of sun. Now after the course when you look at this picture all the time, you will think of
the sun or something to do with light, something to do with brightness, something to do
with day or date. So these are the things that’ll come to your mind; this is how these
pictograms and ideograms have come into beam. A certain idea a certain picture that
forms in your mind when you look at something is shown or depictate like this, in form
of straight horizontal and vertical lines.
(Refer Slide Time: 24:06)

So well we will go ahead now and see what hiragana and katakana are?. Well, the kana
scripts are phonetic scripts. They are symbols, phonetic symbols, whatever you say you
write. So hiragana has 46 basic symbols and so has katakana also 46 basic symbols. Now
there is a second set also of both the scripts, for both the scripts. The second set has 25
characters each and the interesting part is that the second set is made from the first set by
using just two symbols like this and this. These two symbols are used in the first set and
another second set of 25 symbols is made.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:16)

So this is the kana script of course, when you see. You will know you can see this stroke
order. Stroke order means how the character is made what is to be drawn first and what
comes after that and what follows later. Well you have this set, the first set of 46 symbols
of hiragana, right in front of you over here and you can see. The first line is the vowel
line, the vowels are here. I will read them out to you once, then we have the K sound, or
the KA sound, S or SA sound, T or TA sound, N or NA sound, H or HA sound, M or
MA sound, Y or YA sound, R or RA sound. And then we have this W over here, N over
here and WO over here. These two are given of course, in the olden script but now these
are not in use anymore. First, let us do the vowels. Well the vowels are, you can repeat
after me; A, I, U, E,O , once again A, I, U, E, O.

Then we have the K series and you have to join this K with the vowel here which makes
it KA, KI, KU, KE and KO and in a similar manner for the S series SA, SHI, SU, SE and
then SO. You will notice over here that this is a little different. The sound is not C, but it
is SHI, this is an exception please keep that in mind. Then we have the TA series, and
again in a similar manner TA, CHI, TSU, TE, TO, CHI and TSU again are little
different, these are also exceptions. So you need to remember these three exceptions
SHI, CHI and TSU. Then we have the N series and again in a similar manner NA, NI,
NU, NE and NO. Then the H series HA, HI, FU, HE and HO and then the MA series or
the M series; MA, MI, MU, ME, MO. Now you will notice something over here, that all
these consonants, all these k, s, t, n, h, m, so far, are joining with vowels here and then
the sound is there, then the syllable is made. So in Japanese please remember all
syllables will always have a vowel in the end.

No syllable is complete without a vowel, except for one and we are going to do this very
soon. Well then will come to the Y series YA, YU, YO. The R series; RA, RI, RU, RE,
RO. Then we have WA, you can leave these two out WO and N. Now as I told you just
now this is the only one which does not end in a vowel. You will say how will we use
this. Well I will give you a word; very simple, how would say orange in Japanese, well it
is orengi. So the N sound in orange is this alphabet over here. Then if you take the word
in Japanese it is MIKAN for orange. So, well MIKAN. You see this sound; that is how it
is going to be used, and you will notice for all of them that they all end in vowels. You
can write them very nicely. The stroke order is given very clearly over here and of
course, you can go on that and see hiragana and katakana and different ways of writing
hiragana and katakana.
(Refer Slide Time: 31:41)

Well this is very clearly given in different colors for you to remember. The exceptions
are also given over here and you can revise it and do it at home.

(Refer Slide Time: 31:56)

Now, you will see the katakana, though pronunciation is the same, writing system is
given over here, but you will notice that it is very very angular, unlike hiragana. I show
you the slide once again, you can see how cursive and round it is, how feminine it looks
and then this katakana over here extremely masculine very very angular. So well it is the
same a, i, u, e, o, ka, ki, ku, ke, ko, sa, shi, su, se, so, ta, chi, tsu, te, to, na, ni, nu, ne, no,
ha, hi, hu, he,
ho ma, mi, mu, me, mo, ya, yu nd yo. Well these two are missing in both hiragana and
katakana, because it is very similar to this sound. So that is why it has been left out. Then
you have ra, ri, ru, re, ro, wa, wo, and n. Now this ‘wo’ and this ‘o’ for both hiragana and
katakana have a different meaning. This(o) is a vowel and this(wo) is used as a particle,
in the language. Now we will talk about particles also, but a little later. For the time
being, you could just keep it in mind that ‘wo’ over here is used as a particle and not this
‘o’, but the ‘o’ in hiragana. Please remember that hiragana are used for words of
Japanese origin and also to change tenses of verbs and to show different verb forms
hiragana is used and katakana of course, is for foreign words. Well this is katakana for
you, you can see very clearly, again different colors, easy to memorize, so you can do
this.

(Refer Slide Time: 34:10)

(Refer Slide Time: 34:26)

Now, as I was telling you kanji’s are ideograms and pictograms, each character has a
meaning. Each symbol as you can see over here, this symbol has a meaning and each
character has minimum two readings; one a Chinese reading and another one a Japanese
reading. So please as we can see each character has a meaning and reading of its own.
There are specific ways of writing and one has to memorize the stroke order, which is
how the strokes are to be made in kanji it is extremely important to memorize and learn
the stroke order, because the stroke order for a character is fixed, that does not change
and there is a reason, because you need to go to the next character or word. So it has to
end over here; one and it has to start from here like this. You cannot start a character
from here and may be go here and do something like this. No, there is a specific set
order, to write kanji characters pictograms.
 (Refer Slide Time: 35:45)

Well now, what are kanji characters, what are pictograms?. As I just told you about nichi

(Refer Slide Time: 35:54)

So, when you look at this now. I think you will think of the sun. How would you show man in
line, man in lines? Well this is how a man looks, when you want to, talk about someone you
say ok this person over here but you cannot make this picture all the time and write about
man and say this is what is man. So, what will you do? Well just remove the head from here
just make it like this. When you look at this picture now, what does it look like?. Does it not
remind you of a man?. Well you can see now, see when you make this you know it is a man.
So, in Japanese, or Chinese when you write this character, it tells you that it is a man, you are
talking about someone. Well if you look at this, what do you think it is? It is water. Is it not?
It looks like a river flowing. So, well it is going to be made like this. If you look at fire, how
will you show fire in a character, how will you show it in lines? Well this is how fire looks
like, you have the logs over here, you have wood over here and when it burns, well this is
what it looks like. Now how will you show it in picture form or in line form? Simple, like this
this and make it like this, so simple like this and this. So when you look at this, you will
know we are talking about fire. This is what pictograms are all about, of course, these are
very simple pictograms, these are not difficult pictograms, you can relate to them, you can
understand these very clearly. It only gets complicated when it becomes a little abstract.

(Refer Slide Time: 38:20)

So, well we will do all of that later. As I told you this is hito, this is hito. Now what does
this look like? This looks like a mouth, an opening, isn’t it. So, if you join these two
characters, it means population; so many mouth, so many people, so, many mouths to
feed and what is that; that is ‘population’. So well that is how, you would think of kanji
characters. There is one more very simple you have done this one over here this means
fire and what is a volcano. Volcano throws fire a mountain is like this. You can see with
the base over here this looks like a mountain. So, well if you have this and this,
automatically even if you do not know the word, you know that this is a mountain which
throws fire, so it is a ‘volcano’. So that is how these kanji characters have come into
being and that is how you write them, that is how you show them and you understand.

(Refer Slide Time: 39:45)

Now, Japanese is written horizontally and vertically as well. You can see horizontally,
you can see it is written over here and vertically you can see, how its written. You can
also write like this, but it starts from the right side, please remember not from this side,
you go this way, but when you write horizontally it starts from the left side; that is very
important.

(Refer Slide Time: 40:02)

(Refer Slide Time: 40:13)

Also you will notice something else over here there are no spaces at all and kanji
characters, hiragana characters are all used simultaneously together and of course, you
can see there is this katakana also used over here. So in the language, all three scripts are
used simultaneously, which was not happening earlier. Earlier for a long long time the
Japanese continued to write, in either kanji, katakana or hiragana, but now as you can see
very clearly in this slide, all three are used together.

(Refer Slide Time: 41:05)

 Now, as I told you there are no spaces, something is written over here in Japanese and
something is written over here. We are used to space in between words, but the Japanese
have no problem at all in reading this. Why because you have kanji pictogram, you have
the hiragana in blue and then in red you have in orange you have katakana. So without
even spacing it is very clear.

(Refer Slide Time: 41:43)

Now, we will do the vowels very quickly and give you some vocabulary. You can repeat after
me; the meanings are given over here in black. I will not read out the meanings, I will just
read out, what is written in hiragana and of course, in Roman it is given over here you can
read this as well. This is the vowel series A, I, U, E and O. As I told you A for apple B for bat
is what we are going to do here. So well Ahiru, Ari, Isu, Inu, Ushi, Uchi, Ebi, Eki, Origami,
Oomu. So you can repeat all these again and again and I am sure you will feel comfortable
very soon.
(Refer Slide Time: 43:12)
There is more, you can repeat after me; Ashi, Ase, Ishi, Ito, Usage, Ue, Uta, Eki, Eda,
Oni, Okashi, Otera. So all the meanings are given very clearly, you can learn these.

(Refer Slide Time: 44:04)

(Refer Slide Time: 44:10)

Then we have the K series or KA series; you can see the sound KA series; Kani, Kasa,
Kirin, Kimono, Kusa, Kutsu, Ke-ki. Now this is a foreign word thus it is written in
katakana, cake and also ko-hi long sound Ko-and hi- Ko-hi-, coffee and koara kola bear
KO A RAkola bear and you will notice that we do not have L in Japanese. All L (English
alphabets) are suppose to be pronounced as RA sounds. So all the meanings are given
very clearly, you can learn these.

(Refer Slide Time: 45:32)

Then vocabulary for the K series; Kaban, Kagi, Kitsune, Kuchi, Kudamono, Kushi, Ke-
ki, Keitai, Keshigomu, Kodomo, Kocha. So well the meanings are again given, it is
given in roman as well. So you can please read all of it and learn it.

(Refer Slide Time: 46:45)

Now, we have the SA series and in the SA series you already know, the SHI is an
exception. So well Sakana, Saru, Shika, Shimauma, Suzume, Suika, Semi, Sebiro, Sora,
Soba. So this is the SA series for you, the SHI of course is different, please try to
pronounce the shi… It is she as in the english s h e she, but over here the pronunciation
is she over here. It is the spelling or the syllable is s h i.
(Refer Slide Time: 48:10)

Some words again; Sake, Sara, Same, Shichi, Shingo, Sumou, Sushi, Senaka, Se-ta- is a
sweater and the sound is a little long and in the end we have Sora. So why I have given
the vocabulary, like this to you, is for you to make sentences, for you to speak out loudly
and one thing very important over here is that you should speak out loudly and say it
very very clearly. So that it is heard by you and you can understand where you are
fumbling or going wrong.

(Refer Slide Time: 49:27)

So well the meanings are again given, it’s given in roman as well. So you can please read
all of it and learn it.

(Refer Slide Time: 49:38)

Now, for your first lesson there are a lot of things, but well we should do the numerals
over here, the numbers. So well very very quickly, it is given, the equivalent of all this
over here; Ichi, Ni, San, Yon, Go, Roku, Nana, Hachi, Kyuu Juu. Once again Ichi, Ni,
San, Yon, Go, Roku, Nana, Hachi, Kyuu, Juu. It is a long sound. So, please practice this,
so that you are comfortable when we do something new in our next class.

(Refer Slide Time: 50:50)

There is a small expression. In fact, there are two there is ‘Ohayou gozaimasu’, with a
raising intonation here meaning ‘Good morning’. So, anytime you meet someone from 6
in the morning till 10 o’clock, well you can say Ohayou gozaimasu very freely and also
if you’re very very informal with the person‘Ohayou’ will suffice and then you have
‘konnichiwa’, which means ‘Good day’ and you can use it from 10 o’clock onwards till
5 or 6 in the evening, just before dark. Konnichiwa and Ohayou gozaimasu. So, it is
Ohayou gozaimasu and Konnichiwa. Well practice these expressions, will be doing more
of these in our classes later. Now my work is over for today and your work begins. You
have some assignments here for you.

(Refer Slide Time: 51:56)

The first one is, you have these words, the vocabulary that we did and the English
meanings over here just match group A with group B. Then we have one, two, three, four
till ten, well match one two three four with the equivalence in Japanese. There are a
number of pictures here. I want you to name all the pictures and practice loudly and then
there is a small exercise. There is a small picture here, of a lot of things, just list objects
in the picture. With that I will end for today. Today has been a little long for you. Well
with this I would like to end, thank you very much and ‘Mata Aimashou’ and this phrase
that I am using, I will explain to you tomorrow, so Minnasan Mata Ashita Aimashou
,Arigatou gozaimasu ..

Thank you.